Independent Books

I am very happy to get this book in my hands. I am from SouthEastern Europe, so production here is still something that isn't taken so seriously. I've learned so much from this book, and i think that it could be said that every producer should have one copy of this book on desk.

I'm very happy with that book, which is specialized but quite acessible for people with a genuine interst in the matter and who want to understand the how and why. It is concise and complete, and raises your interest.

I have been working on a business plan for well over a year. I was so frustrated. My business partner suggested we buy this book. We ended up finishing the plan in a few weeks... Her book is amazingly helpful. I look forward to updating this review once we receive the funds!! Thanks for writing it and helping fellow filmmakers...

This book is useless. I am an independent producer, and I found out the hard way that no financier wants to look at a business plan. If they are in the business they want to see a script and maybe, a budget. If they are not in the business, they want to see LLC documents. See The Biz, Schuyler M. Moore, Silman-James Press, Beverly Hills, 2002.

A great place to start for the indie filmmaker

I am an independent filmmaker. I also run a film festival called The Gangrene Film Festival. I have striven for years to get a feature length project off the ground. The task is daunting and scary for someone who doesn't know the business.

Filmmakers & Financing is an excellent place to start. I found this book highly useful. The book teaches in a simple, step-by-step format how to put together an excellent business plan for your film. It teaches what investors are looking for in a business plan and how you can get their ear with a professional, well-researched prospectus.

It is not enough just to be an artist and to be passionate about your craft as a filmmaker; these things won't get you financial backing. You must explore the market and analyze your future film's possible place in that market. This book teaches you how to do just that.

Hope this helps.

-Craig Nybo, co-author of Total Human: The Complete Strength Training System

I am glad to have read "Hot Talk Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate." Although it is written in such a way that a lay person can generally understand, it isn't easy to read.
Having heard a lecture by Fred Singer in a local college I was interested to read further evidence of his scientific position.

While Singer's book may provide some useful information about the global warming debate, it's overshadowed by shoddy organization and a weak writing style. The repetition of the same key information makes it appear as if Singer has ample evidence for his claim; however, his three major points appear in the foreword. Don't waste your time reading the whole book!

I don't believe in global warming, based on my own studies on climate and pollution over the past 30 years. But this guy Singer is a complete joker.

He completely misses the point and addresses issues which no proponent of global warming has ever raised. He tackles dumb subjects, and ignores the very complexity of the issue which he claims to discuss. An example: Singer talks about the earth getting warmer, and says being warm will help poor people, as less fuel will be needed to keep people cosy. RUBBISH. The issue is not about the CLIMATE getting WARMER, its about climates everywhere CHANGING in either direction. Climate change proponents claim that cold places may get colder, warm places wramer, or anything in between - their arguement is that nobody knows and the risks need to be managed. Yet Singer has completely ignored the science and the political arguements - he claims to have studied them, but he's either a crap student or he's lying.

I can come to no other conclusion except that this prat has decided to write a book to make money and make a name for himself, and he risks destroying the hard work which other climate scientists are doing to disprove the climate change theory. What a complete loser. It makes me furious.

This is one of the easiest books to follow that tell the truth about the non-existence of so-called "global warming." Here, Mr. Singer analyzes the Global Climate Treaty and shows how damaging it could be to our economy, if adopted. He goes on to review the relevant facts and figures that clearly indicate the lack of overall warming of our globe in the last decade. His conclusions regarding the effects of man-made carbon dioxide are also clearly justified and documented, showing that the media claims are simply not supported by known facts.

This book clearly explains why we should NOT sign the Kyoto treaty, as Pres. Bush insists, and for the same reasons, that it would decimate our economy without doing anything that useful for our worldwide environment. Americans of all parties should read this book and be prepared to resist the media fear-mongers who try to get us to run from their chicken-little-like scare tactics into the arms of economy-destroying legislation.

Fred Singer has previously worked for tobacco companies fighting and argued that there's no evidence that smoking is bad for your health; he then argued that there was no evidence that ozone was being depleted. Now he argues that there's no evidence that the globe is warming. With credentials like those, you know what you're going to get: mostly misleading scientific arguments, served with a side of outright fabrication, and a sauce of unsupportable value judgments.

If you hate the environment, then you should buy this book --- you'll love it. But if you want FACTS, look elsewhere.

Russell Conder's Handmade Houseboats is a definitive work on building your own houseboat. Granted some technology has improved over the years, but common sense would tell any reader to look into using updated materials.

Mr. Barron, btw, is most incorrect in stating that this book was first published in 1953. Russell is in his mid-fifties currently. If he had written this book in 1953, he would have been just a child.

This book was unhelpful and dated. I sold it to a used bookstore shortly after
I looked at it. If you are looking for information on bulding a contemporary houseboat, do
NOT purchase this book.

The author seems to be a true original and obviously has a wealth of experience with houseboats.
Trouble is, most of the content of the book is over 40 years old. Since the book was originally copyrighted in 1953 materials and techniques have advanced by light years.
This book might be helpful if you're building your own boat on a really tight budget and and you think you can benefit from early 50's technology, or, you like reading about older boatbuilding techniques.

First off, its important not to get the kind of boats this author is writing about mixed up with the strange beasts seen on Lake Powell - Conder is describing homes that float rather than those that move around at (relatively) high speed.

This is the best book I've come across if you are planning on building a houseboat. Some of the reviewers below criticize it for being dated. True: the prices of materials are off. But most of the information is right on and fairly timeless (Barron's comments [below] are simply not accurate - the book was first released in 1992 - not '53 as he states - he must be writing about another book).

The book is inspirational in that it serves to remind the reader that there's more to life than a house on a quarter acre with a mortgage.

The bottom line is that this book offers all the information needed to plan, build, launch and live in a floating home.

I read this book, and in August 2005 built a floating 10x12' shed housing a 12kw generator on a 12'x20' barge floating on 34 plastic 55 gallon drums using the methods described in this book. I bought those drums for $11 a piece, and found out later they can be had for $8 or maybe even for free. Yeah, the information may be old, but it's still good. It's a way to get yourself out on the water for pennies on the dollar of what you'd have to pay to buy a used commercially built houseboat, and it'll be new and things inside it will work, and not need constant fixing. I had the barge itself built in 3 days, helped mostly by an unruley 12 year old. It could have easily been 36 x 12' and had a nice little house on it. One caveat: You won't be able to insure a craft built using this method. Even if you don't build using the barrel raft method, there's lots of other good information in the book about houseboats, and I like the Jimmy Buffetesque attitude that the author seems to have.

A quick and easy read. Clearly describes and illustrates all the skills necessary to begin surfing. I recommend it for young and old surfers.

Having never surfed, I was in the market for a very simple book to explain some of the basics before I actually got into the waves. This book fit that bill perfectly. It gave very simple lessons about how to start the sport--the necessary equipment, where to surf, how to actually get on your board and a little history of the sport. It didn't rely on surfer lingo that muddles everything up for beginners who are not yet in the know and had a number of excellent photographs to visually capture what the words were trying to say. It is very well written for someone who does not have experience and I think it is a fantastic teaching tool. I would highly recommend this book for all beginners or parents of beginners who just want to have an idea of what their child is getting into. I can't wait to put these lessons into practice.

The book is basic, and not badly written; friendly and clear advice and instruction for the would-be surfer, but it's a slim volume-and here's the rub (and the reason for only 2 stars): the binding of this trade paperback was the worst I've seen in quite a while-it fell apart after one read-through, with whole handfuls of the sewn-in pages cascading to the floor. Most defintely NOT what you'd want in any how-to book.

As a long-time climber who finally learned to surf this past year, I naturally assumed there would be a surplus of good instructional/reference books on the market for beginning surfers, like John Long's "How to Rock Climb" series serves for climbers. There aren't. This is one of the few I found, and I supposed it's better than the competition, but that's not saying much.

Surfing is less a technical and more of an intuitive type of sport. That said, there are plenty of technical aspects to it, and this book continually falls short in explaining or even mentioning many of them. The chapter on "paddling out," for instance, doesn't even mention duck-diving or turtle-rolling to get outside the wave break, let along teach them. These aren't easy things to do on a big, fat beginner's board, but at some point every surfer will need to learn how to get outside efficiently. A surfing instruction book should give you some hint here, but I had to go searching on the web to find step-by-step instructions because whatever I was doing wasn't working right and this tome is worthless as a reference book after you've been out 2 or 3 times.

Another example: the book recommends you get a "big" board. No explanation of the different types of beginner-appropriate boards (longboards, eggs, hybrids) vs intermediate-appropriate boards (shortboards, fish, etc). No description of the impact of different board parameters (rocker angles, nose and tail shapes, thickness) have on how a board handles surf; you're just told it's too complex for you to understand so don't bother to ask.

In any sport, you really need some basic instruction from someone who knows what they're doing to really get going. An instructional book should be there to help you remember and make sense of everything afterward, at night when you're not out there practicing. This book doesn't meet those criteria very well.

I had been surfing for about six or eight months regularly before I bought this book. Thus, there was almost nothing that helpful in here for me; I already knew how to paddle out, pop up, what kind of conditions to look for and which to avoid, I'd already boughten an appropriate board. Nothing in the book mentions more advanced/intermediate tips I was looking for like how to turn/carve, or technical aspects on differences between boards.

That said, this book would be good fot total beginners who have not tried surfing yet and just want to be sure of the facts and basics. Many of these things you will pick up intuitively, but some of it will not automatically come naturally, thus the book is good to prevent/check bad habits, create good ones-- i.e. don't look down when you ride a wave, arch your back when you pop up, etc.

Wendy Lesser has written an engaging book or half-critical, half-personal essays, a form that has gone out of style. She should be commended for reinvigorating it.

Only a sourpuss could dislike this engaging, enlightening and well-crafted autobiography by Threepenny Review's founder and editor, Wendy Lesser. In two dozen essays, we not only learn about the great obstacles inherent in starting a literary journal, we see how Lesser developed as a reader and observer. This is a delightful read filled with Lesser's wonderful observations on love, art and publishing. I highly recommend this book.

The Amateur: An Independent Life of Letters by Wendy Lesser is a semi-autobiographical book of short essays. The chapters are in a loosely chronological order, only some pertaining directly to the author's life and career path; the others are simply essays on topics that interest the author. The confusing format of the book -- part memoir and part essay collection -- is a macrocosm for what is wrong with not only the book as a whole but the writing in particular. The book follows no plan or path, and arrives at no ultimate destination, fitting neither genre snugly. Moreover, the essays themselves are unfulfilling, leaving out much detail and ending or changing direction abruptly, neither satisfying as a group nor as individual pieces.

The cardinal rule for writing an autobiography is that the author should have led an interesting life that the reader will want to learn and read about. This is the first major problem with Wendy Lesser's book. She has written about her life and no doubt her close friends and relatives will enjoy reading about it, but I did not. She is a native Californian daughter of divorced parents who was educated in the lofty surroundings of Radcliffe College and in the company of some illustrious classmates (most notably Benazir Bhutto, the future president of Pakistan, whom she then affectionately called "Pinkie"). After college she spent time as a consultant to various liberal and governmental organizations advising them on the more esoteric aspects of social justice policy. She finally found her calling as a writer and editor, and has published several books, in addition to founding and editing The Threepenny Review, a literary journal. I'm not sure why, but I found myself saying repeatedly to myself, as I read this woman's memoirs, "Who cares?" It may be that Lesser focused too much on the details of her life that would have been more appropriate in a journal, while ignoring the more interesting bits. I would have liked to have read more about the genesis and life of her publication, The Threepenny Review, rather than about her childhood, her hobbies, her self-admittedly insignificant consulting career, and her opinions about culture.

Lesser's writing on any one subject, whether it interested me or not, lacked cohesion and sometimes even a point. Her sentences were often abrupt and choppy, and lacked explanation. For instance, in describing her college days at Radcliffe, she whets the reader's appetite with her mention of "Pinkie" Bhutto, initially describing her as "innocently giggly and high-spirited," and later "brassily ditzy, bubble-brained," but then says "long after I had ceased to see her, she all at once dropped the mask and became a serious, wily politician, her father's rightful heir. The change seemed sudden; yet if you had asked me, even as a freshman, to guess who among my acquaintance would eventually become a world-famous political figure, I would not have hesitated to answer, 'Pinkie Bhutto.'" And there she ends her narrative, leaving me asking, "Why did you think that?" That is a question I found myself asking repeatedly throughout her book.

Another failing of Lesser's writing is that it seems not to have been edited all that well -- a supreme irony since Lesser's main claim to fame is that she is an editor -- and many times I was left to wonder why she included certain sentences or whole passages, since they made no sense to me. I found myself writing "What? and Huh?" in the margins a lot, when for instance she described a boyfriend's studio thusly: "The smell of the place was close and oppressive, as if several pairs of sexually active old shoes and socks had been closeted together for weeks." What does this mean? Another egregious error in editing comes as she inadvertently draws a metaphor for her own inept writing, when she writes: "For a year or two I had been writing monthly book reviews for a local organ called the San Francisco Review of Books, which ranged in quality from the somewhat interesting to the truly atrocious (ranged within each issue, I mean). She probably meant that the books ranged from somewhat interesting to truly atrocious, but her misuse of syntax makes this sentence mean that her reviews ranged in quality. Unforgivable for a self-styled wordsmith to write this way, and even less forgivable for a self-proclaimed editor not to have caught the mistake. Moreover, the author seems not to grasp the basic Strunk and White rule about when to use "I" or "me," which she bungles on the very first page of her book and again in the second chapter.

Finally, Lesser has a truly annoying habit of assuming information in referring to certain literary or artistic works in a shorthand way that makes the reader seem ignorant if their significance does not leap to mind. She also is a name-dropper, a pretension that is unnecessarily belittling to the reader. I do not recommend reading The Amateur, precisely because its title holds the key to why it was so poorly written.

The author's observations are simply not very interesting, and her life is rather blase, although she, herself, finds it endlessly fascinating. She strikes me as a wait-to-talk, rather than listen-and-respond, luncheon companion.

I found these essays delightful. I admire intensely the creative path the author has taken in her life, and I find her writing most engaging. This book may be of special interest to those who like to read about a writer's literary passions.

I got the book just in time and it was in the promised condition. I would buy from this vendor again.

I have one major point of contention with this author. What I will be referencing is found in her field notes on ODD and chapter seven. I believe that Ferguson is arguing that psychologists are not fairly diagnosing African American students, and labeling them with disorders like ODD without taking into account the external circumstances. She points out that African-American males are disproportionately in special education. First, she says that D'Andre is a part of a growing number of adolescents diagnosed with a personality disorder. She says "the APA goes to pains to underscore the origins of the disorder as within the individual and not the result of external circumstances." She also says that "diagnosticians are instructed to discount the social environment and reject any claims on the part of the individual that external forces have contributed to the problem." She then goes to to say that we need to look at the unreasonable circumstances that led to D'Andre's actions, unreasonable circumstances she feels the psychologists ignore. The reason I bring up this as a major point of contention is because she has all her information incorrect in this section. Often when I am confronted with psychology information in my education classes I asked one of my friends for clarification of the matter. I believe she is a highly qualified person to comment on anything psychology related. I talked to her about the author's claims about ODD and she was amazed at the backwardness of the information.

First, the author claimed that D'Andre was a part of growing number of adolescents diagnosed with a personality disorder. My friend said that is is impossible to label anyone under 18 years old with a personality disorder and that any psychologist who would do so would lose their license. Perhaps the author misspoke and meant to say that D'Andre is a part of a growing number of adolescents with behavioral disorders. Second, these are quotes from the DSM, "judgments about personality functioning must take into account the individual, cultural, ethnic and social backgrounds in providing any diagnosis." The last quote that I feel goes against what Ferguson suggests is, "Anti-Social P.D. appears to be associated with low socio-economic status and urban settings. Concerns have been raised that diagnosis may at times be misapplied to individuals in settings which seemingly anti-social behaviors may be a part of protective survival strategies. In assessing anti-social traits, it is helpful for the clinician to consider social and economic context in which behaviors occur." I bring this point up because the author characterizes psychologists as part of the problem, but the actual writing suggests something else. She indites the APA in a conspiracy to help place labels of personality disorders and ODD on African-American students. She also very blatantly twists quotes from the DSM and APA writings. I will give her the benefit of the doubt that perhaps the school psychologist at Rosa Parks school was doing what she claimed, but she applied that to all of the psychological field.

Her inclusion of the ODD section and her comments suggest that she is spinning information to fit her preconceived hypothesis and also makes me suspect of other conclusions she draws. By how big of a deal my friend is making it suggests to me even further the inappropriateness of Ferguson's comments. I do admit though that this is a small portion of the book but I felt the attention to this detail needed to be made.

There were good points in the book, but I highly suspect some of her conclusions.

When do the black kids take responsibility for their behavior? How can the school help them to do this? To be sure, it is shameful for schools to overly punish black youngsters. At the same time, what does one say to black youngsters who devalue school or use it as an avenue to act out certain stereotypes or cultural dilemmas--when the acting out is self-destructive.

We are caught in a cycle of acting out what Richard Wright called the "Bad N*****" archetype--that is, Bad Thomas, who did not care if he was beaten or lynched, and who remained unbowed before "white" (that is, illegatimate) authority. His heroism was in remaining unbowed.

The author would have done better by searching for the bilateral influences (cultural, stereotypical, archetypical, and developmental): that is, how being "tough" (read: a "hero" on one side, "bad," "unbowed" on the other) affects school personnel. Having done that, she could then make recommendations about how to extract ourselves (both children and adults) from this two-way morass of two-way screwy, self-destructive behaviors and reciprocal archetypes, Bad Thomas on one side and Simon Legre on the other.

Bad Boys, a social science book, is about how African American males are perceived in the school system by school faculty. In this book told by Ann Arnett Ferguson, she follows some eleven and twelve year old boys who are labeled as "unsalvageable", "troublemakers", or "schoolboys." Boys that were labeled "unsalvageable" meant that there is no hope for them and that they would probably make it into the court system at a young age and be lucky to make it to high school. The "troublemakers" were identified as those who got into trouble. The "schoolboys" were those who were labeled as doing well. This book shows how African American boys were looked upon in the school systems.
This book has many good and many bad points in it. The fact that it is written kind of like her own journal was something that I saw as helpful. It made it an easy read. Interviewing the parents and children also made it something easy to read. The interviews were what I though made it the most interesting. It was fun to see what the parents were saying to their kids and also what the kids thought.
The interviewing that she did was good in some ways and in other ways I think she could have improved the book by doing a little more interviewing. What I mean is that when she did interview the children she seemed to do well. However in my opinion I think that if she would have done a little more interviewing with the teachers and the parents then it would have helped her research. I know that this book is about the African American students, however if she would have let us know more of the opinions of the parents and or teachers then I think this book would have improved. When she talks about the teachers in this book she is always talking about how they sent the kids to the office or how they let this kid get away with something but not another one. Most of the time the kids that were labeled the "troublemakers" did not get much leeway on messing around like some of the other kids did. I did like how they interviewed some of the parents. I also believe that if she would have interviewed some of the white kids to see what they thought and how they viewed the African Americans then it would have been a little more interesting.
The interviews in the part "The Real World" made the story come to life. I think that the interview that she did with the parents made us as the readers understand what their home life was like and how their parents were raising them. The interview with Terrence's parents gives us an idea of how home life is in this neighborhood. Terrence's parents want him to succeed in life. They want him to know that everything he does reflects who and how he acts as a person. Terrence's parents want him to know that even the way he dresses reflects on how people are going to look at him and view him. This interview lets us know that the parents really do want their kids to succeed and don't want to see them failing or in trouble.
One thing that I though should have been different were her little field notes. Many of the times they could have been incorporated into the chapters. I had no clue why she had to make them as extra side notes. In some cases in the book it would have made more sense to put them in when she was talking about that subject. Also on the side notes sometimes they seemed to drag on a little too long. For example, in the mothering field note I think that she could have cut out a bunch of that. I know that she made it feel like a conversation but I felt like much of the conversation was repetitive. I think to make things easier in this situation she could have made it shorter by summarizing what the mother was saying.
One other thing that needs to be addressed is the fact that this book was the fact that it looked like Ann was looking for the kids to be troublemakers. She did not go into this book with an open mind. I think she went in with a closed mind and a preconceived notion that African American males are troublemakers. You can see in the way that she writes this book that she already believes that African American children get treated different then other races.
All in all this was a decent book. There are a couple of thinks that could have been done to improve it. If the interviews were a little more diverse and she would have went at going to do her fieldwork with an open mind then she could have produced a better book. Don't get me wrong though the way it was written like a journal and the interviews with the parents did make it a good book. There however is always room for improvement.

I was excited to begin reading this book and to learn how the school system unproportionately suspended and disciplined African American males. I was not expecting to learn how the author related the concept of masculinity and discipline into cause and effect paradigm. Even though this class and other sociological classes have taught me to think for myself, ask questions, and expand on concepts presented to me, I am in agreement with the theories and evidence that the author, Ann Arnett Ferguson, presents in her book.
The book begins with an introduction of the community that Rosa Parks Elementary School belongs to. Ferguson is conducting her research here for her doctorate. She has many forms of observing and gathering data needed for her thesis. Sometimes she is a "fly on the wall", a quiet observer. Other times Ferguson is more involved in participant groups, tutoring, and one-on-one interviews. She gathers the most information and insights through her interviews with the children that attend the school and their families. She credits the interview sessions as a valuable way to let the children ask her questions, gain her trust, and for her to develop a deeper understanding of her own strengths and weaknesses and those of her interviewees.
After observing the pupils of the school in the hallways, after school tutoring sessions, and inside the classroom, Ferguson makes an important discovery that becomes the foundation of her research. Her breakthrough came when she stumbled upon two small rooms in the school. These rooms provided discipline, punishment, and seclusion for students who were not following the classroom or school rules. The first room, used for minor infractions, was known throughout the population of the students as "The Punishing Room". The other room was reserved as a place for students who receiving in-school or after-school suspension, anywhere from one to three days. This space was called "The Jailhouse". Files with children's names on it were stored in these rooms to document that more frequent visitor's deviant behavior. While observing the caliber of students in these two rooms, it does not take long for Ferguson to see two important details: the students who are often in trouble are usually African American and male. Teachers that were interviewed notice this discrepancy as well but cannot offer any well substantiated reasons why this occurs. Over the course of her three years of research at Rosa Parks Elementary School, Ferguson comes up with evidence to explain this phenomenon.
Ferguson argues that rather than simply internalizing the negative labels bestowed on them by teachers and school personnel, the African American boys look critically at schooling as they dispute and evaluate the meaning and motivation behind the labels that have been attached to them. In a school were students are judged by their class, race, and gender, many negative labels and stereotypes are presented to students. It is up to the individual if they want to internalize these beliefs or prove the stereotypes wrong. A major conflict that lies within the male gender is that they feel compelled to exert and portray their masculinity. Their "reputations" center around whether they are "hard" or "soft", and this is very important to their self esteem and self worth. "[...] kids recoup a sense of self as competent and worthy under extremely discouraging work conditions. Sadly, they do this by getting in trouble" (Ferguson, 22). The author continues by arguing that sex as well as race are powerful markers of difference, and can be used as explanations as to why children act they way they do. Each race and gender category has different and unique expectations on how children should act and be disciplined. The expectations from family, friends, and school personnel commonly conflict and cause confusion and deviant behavior on the part of the children.
Ferguson's arguments are coherent and well-researched opinions on why school discipline minority male children in a stricter form than most of the student body. I especially agree with the author's ascertain that teachers can be held directly responsible for perpetuating negative predictions about a student's future. On page 227 Ferguson strengthens this point by saying, "[...] school personnel made predictive decisions about a child's future based on whole ensemble of negative assumptions about African American males and their life-chances". The beginning of the book cites examples of white and black teachers referring negatively to a student's chance of staying out of jail. Ferguson states that most boys she interviewed did not see themselves this way. Rather, they portrayed themselves in a positive light. This is one point that I disagree with. Ferguson states that she does not give much merit to the labeling theory. I hold the belief that when teachers voice the grim options of students, they perpetuate a self-fulfilling prophecy that harms that student's self esteem and contributes to their "need" to act out in school.
At the end of the book in the chapter labeled "Dreams", Ann Ferguson states that the inclusion of Black English would benefit the students who come from families where this language is spoken. She argues that this would lessen the hostile environment and feelings of disattachment that many African Americans face. Ferguson believes that this would increase the valuable social linguistic environment of the school and provide validation for black students, especially males. I am not sure I agree with this plan. I can see the value of the learning Ebonics and promoting it in the school system, but I also believe that learning proper English is more valuable for students, because it helps them to get jobs and succeed more in the future.
In conclusion, Ferguson's book is a valuable tool in discerning the unequal disciplinary action that plagues most schools. Understanding the mindset and background of male African American students will benefit teachers, school personnel, and more importantly the students' chances for success.

The word "comprehensive" in the title is the objectionable term here since this book is essentially a series of short, insufficient passages. There is nothing here that couldn't be found for free on the internet or with a little bit of work reviewing *any* basic "starting your own business books."

I'll be returning this book. Ironically, I'm out the return postage cost, but since the book is really only a handbook and uses a big font, the cost probably won't be much to ship such a small book back. My advice is to not waste your money unless you need a primer on basic business principles and a reference for where to get the medical coder training.

Co-authors Donna Avila-Weil, RHIT and Rhonda Regan, CCS, CCS-P combine their expertise in the updated second edition of Independent Medical Coding: The Comprehensive Guidebook for Career Success as a Medical Coder. Independent Medical Coding is an in-depth guide to pursuing medical coding as a career - an excellent opportunity, given that demand for skilled medical coders currently outstrips supply. Chapters cover how to gain the necessary education, as well as cultivating the needed interpersonal and organizational skills; how to become credentialed; specifics on different types of coding systems; how to establish an independent coding business; alternative careers for a coding specialist; and much more. An absolute "must-have" for anyone considering the benefits of a medical coding career.

Donna Avila-Weil, Independent Medical Coding (Rayve Productions, 1999)

Looking for information on being a medical coder? This could be an interesting start, but it likely won't complete your education.

Independent Medical Coding spends its first third or so going over some general concepts you'll need to know in coding, though the key word here is "general"; you'll end up using this as a jumping-off point to find more detailed books about the ins and outs of coding.

The rest of the book is devoted to more general discussion on starting your own home-based business, all of which once again is of a general nature and will probably send you searching for more detailed books on the same topic, if you're looking to start your own business rather than code for a company. So this one is worth your time if you're brand-new to the search, but be aware you'll be buying more books after this. ***

I was very pleased to find this book on Independent Medical Coding. I had been considering just such a career, but didn't know where to begin. This book was exactly what I needed. It gives the experienced coder an alternative career path into entrepeneurship without doing "billing". This book provided me the first stepping stone in what is soon to be my new career. I would like to see the authors do an even more in-depth book, providing even more information about this field. Because books of this nature are so rare, a comprehensive reference would be wonderful, and I would gladly pay extra for the information. The book as written, however, is an excellent resource and I definitely recommend it to anyone already skilled in coding who is interested in working for themselves. Thank you for writing this book!

This book is really a great resource. I have devoured it. There is so much useful information in it and it is the first book I have found on this subject that goes into all it would take to make this a great career move. I was looking for a great home business and I think this book will be a great help. I wish I had found it sooner. Good job for the authors.

Atomic Diplomacy was originally a doctoral dissertation arguing that American leaders saw the atomic bomb as a powerful "master card" that would strengthen their hand against the Soviets and thereby help advance American interests during the summer and early fall of 1945. Although there is a great deal of information contradicting its conclusions, the paper somehow received a passing grade.

At its core, the book is merely a small addition to the academic literature on one aspect of the use of the atomic bomb. The implications drawn from it, however are sensational: Namely that the bomb was dropped for political, not military reasons and that its use is therefore the equivalent of a war crime. In addition, blame for the Cold War can largely be placed at America's feet.

We are informed by way of a ridiculous consipiracy theory that there was no military necessity to drop the bombs. This theory relies on speculation and gross distortion of the historical record. It is said that Japan was ready and willing to surrender but that Truman did not want to allow this to happen out of fear that the opportunity to demonstrate the bomb's power would be lost. Tentative Japanese efforts to enlist the Soviets' help in negotiating highly lenient peace terms are misinterpreted and inflated to the level of Japan's waving a white flag. Post-war opinions by various authorities stating that winning the war without the bomb would have been a snap are presented as fact. Reports about Japan's deteriorating position and other issues that were written before the bombs were dropped are quoted selectively and taken out of context. For example there is no mention of the appalling U.S. casualties suffered during the battle of Okinawa. This cost was one of the key considerations in the decision to drop the bomb. Such rhetorical tricks run rampant through the book and far from clearing up misconceptions that might occur about the book as the author hopes, they instead cast a shadow over its veracity.

Like Alperovitz's later work on the subject, Atomic Diplomacy is rarely coherent or believable in the light of the complete facts. True, there is much evidence that some American leaders hoped that the bomb might yield benefits beyond ending the war with Japan. These hopes were soon proven false, however, and were not the main reason the bombs were used. Despite this, Alperovitz still caims that the bomb didn't just influence American foreign policy - it determined policy.

Truman's various attempts to engage the Soviet Union during mid-1945 are portrayed as being part of a dark conspiracy of intimidation. Alperovitz says that Truman had no intention of reaching any agreements with the Soviets at Potsdam, for example, because he believed that the use of the atomic bomb on Japan would put the U.S. in a better position to negotiate later. This argument is supported by a letter from Truman complaining that the trip to Potsdam was a chore that he would rather avoid. Alperovitz chopped out the part of this statement that makes its real meaning clear - Truman was venting frustration to his Mother about having to wear tails.

Considering that the atomic bomb was used against Japan, it is surprising that only one chapter of the book deals specifically with Asia. This chapter tries to make the case that the war in the Pacific hardly counted for anything to American policy makers because it was obvious to all that Japan was defeated by this time. It's never mentioned that the Japanese government did not recognize this reality and was in fact implementing plans to repel the expected American invasion. It is implied that American leaders had clairvoyant power that allowed them to foresee that Japan would surrender before an invasion was to take place. Truman is said to have determined that the war would have to end by August 8th, solely in order to keep the Soviets out of Asia. This moronic claim can only be accepted if one believes that the war with Japan represented nothing more to Turman than an opportunity to give a "battle demonstration" of the atomic bomb's power to the Soviets.

Much of the book deals with the early post-war situation in Europe. Its purpose is to show how the West attempted to bully the perfectly reasonable Soviets once they decided the atomic bomb would give them an advantage. A sinister face is put on Western attempts to prevent what would be fifty years of tyranny in Eastern Europe. Secretary of State Frank Byrnes's statement that the bomb would allow the U.S. to "dictate our own terms" is taken out of context repeatedly as though it applied to the Soviets when it actually referred to the Japanese. Many other sources are similarly mangled in a constatnt effort to make the facts conform to preordained conclusions. Endless footnotes and appendices are used both to hedge the book's conclusions and to attack other books that provide contradictory information.

Alperovitz awards himself a large amount of credit for originating the belief that the atomic bomb was used as a warning to the Soviets. In fact, the famously paranoid Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin was the first to make this assertion only a few days after the bombs were dropped, and by the end of this book you actually feel sorry for the dictator. His opinion was echoed in the West as early as 1946, and the use of the bomb was called "the first shot of the Cold War" well before Atomic Diplomacy was written.

Prompt and Utter Destruction by Samuel Walker, however, provides an excellent overview of these issues. It is unbiased, highly informative and concise. These qualitites stand in sharp contrast to Atomic Diplomacy's long and misleading attempt to inflate a molehill of truth into a mountain of exaggeration.

My father was present at these events. He was drafted out of Graduate School at Harvard, selected by virtue of performance on IQ tests given there and was directly involved in the code breaking and analysis in the far east. He reported to a Lt General in the US Army for the wartime effort he was officially an officer in Army Intelligence. He read the cables at this time and performed analysis for the Army high command. The story he has related to me is essentially identical to the story this book relates. The bulk of the upper echelon's of the US armed forces realized that Japan was done and was sending out feelers for peace. Japan realized that she was cooked before the Atomic bomb was dropped. My father's specific recollection is that Japan was only requesting that the Emperor not be treated as a war criminal, a condition that was fulfilled anyway. Hence my father has never believed that the dropping of the bomb was required. This book fills in many details of what was going on inside the US government at that time but it basically is entirely consistent with what my father has said since I was old enough to understand.

It is mystifying to me why some people react violently and negatively to the story related in this book. The book is not alleging some grand conspiracy just the normal pushing and pulling inside the government which is typical of decision making in a democracy. The book is well documented.

The above reviews suck...Ok, the book if you (with exception to the third review) read the preface jackson, is about "HOW" the bomb was used in dimplomacy...ok, just read the title maybe that will give you a clue..bible of revisionism give me a break.

Atomic Diplomacy argues that the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan in order to intimidate the Soviet Union, not end the war. This belief is sacred to many left wing historians but based on a fictional reading of history. As a result it is no surprise to see such a sharp divergence of opinion in the reviews here. But there is overwhelming evidence documenting the ridiculous distortions contained in this book.

While attempting to show that Truman had no real intention of reaching an agreement with the Soviets at Potsdam (because the atomic bomb would allow him to "dictate our own terms" later) Alperovitz writes that "Truman made no attempt to hide his feelings: 'I am getting ready to go see Stalin and Churchill, and it is a chore...Wish I didn't have to go, but I do, and it can't be stopped now.'" The use of a hiatus produces the most serious distortion, eliminating "I have to take my tuxedo, tails, preacher coat, high hat, low hat and hard hat as well as sundry other things," and another sentence in the same vein. What Alperovitz presents as the words of President Truman, global strategist looking to "delay a confrontation with Stalin" until the bomb would give him the upper hand, turns out to be Ol' Cap'n Harry, complaining to "Momma and Mary" about the formalities he would have to endure.

In developing his thesis that Truman initially seized upon economic leverage to gain his ends in Eastern Europe, Alperovitz again uses words having to do with one subject and applies them to another. He assigns to Averell Harriman, ambassador to Russia, a great deal of influence in converting Truman to this project. In his discussion of alleged debates over curtailing Lend-Lease aid as a primary tool, Alperovitz quotes Harriman as arguing that the U.S. "'should retain current control of...credits (to the Russians) in order to be in a position to protect American vital interests in the formaulative period immediately following the war.'" A look at the source for this remark, however, reveals that Harriman's statement did not pertain to Lend Lease at all, but to postwar dollar credits. Alperovitz's excision of the word "these" ("these credits") gave the sentence a meaning Harriman never intended.

During Alperovitz's analysis of what American leaders believed possession of the bomb would enable them to extract from the Russians, James Byrnes's "new advice" to Truman that "'the bomb might well put us in a position to dictate our own terms..." is said to occur months later than Truman's account states that it actually did. And Alperovitz's omission of the latter part of Byrnes's statement, "at the end of the war," is misleading, to say the least. As Truman's prose makes plain, the statement he ascribed to Byrnes referred to terms with JAPAN "at the end of the war," not terms with the Soviets after it.

Alperovitz burdens words with imports not found in the documents he cites. In his assessment of the "atomic diplomacy" inaugurated after Hiroshima and Nagasaki he writes, "American diplomacy changed so swiftly that few observers have caught the sweep of all the policy decisions unveiled in a few short weeks." As evidence of what he calls "the breath and scope of new diplomatic departures," Alperovitz quotes Byrnes as having written that "those...days...were full of action." In context, however, Byrnes was discussing merely the number of items which had to be dealt with at the war's end, including matters such as the visits of Charles de Gaulle and Georges Bidault, new department appointment, and the like. He makes no mention of any "new diplomatic departures."

Roosevelt is quoted as saying that the British were "perfectly willing" for the U.S. to go to war with Russia, without mentioning that F.D.R. spoke in "a semi-jocular manner."

There are many other examples of this sort of nonsense in Atomic Diplomacy. However Alperovitz is not so deluded as to claim, as in one review below, that the U.S. "intended to drop the bomb on them (Japan) whether they were preparing for a land invasion or eating cotton candy in a large circle." Only a true ideologue could say that Truman would have dropped the atomic bomb even if Japan had accepted the Potsdam terms. Is it so hard to see that Japan's actions might have had something to do with all this? Or must we believe that these cotton candy eaters were merely passive participants in events for which they bear no responsibility?

It was obvious to all at the time that the Soviets intended to enslave Eastern Europe because they were in the process of doing so while the Potsdam conference took place. In direct violation of the Yalta agreements, the Soviets were creating tyrannical regimes and systematically excluding democracy-minded Eastern Europeans from power. Although never mentioned by Alperovitz, this was the problem that Truman and other Western leaders were responding to, not a desire for "money and power" that didn't exist in this war shattered region, and which no one disputed, was in the Soviet sphere of influence.

Anyone with a basic knowledge of the events of World War II will recall the battle of Okinawa - in itself a mountain of evidence contradicting Alperovitz's conclusions. This horror show (ignored in Atomic Diplomacy) gave U.S. officials good reason to believe that Japan intended to fight to the finish at great human cost, ergo, the plan to shock Japan's leadership with the atomic bomb and thereby force them to accept the inevitable and surrender, thus avoiding further bloodshed. This plan was hardly an attempt to "divine the outcome" of the war.

Atomic Diplomacy seeks to obfuscate the simple truth and replace it with a laughable conspiracy theory. It is only of use to those ideologues who have made up their mind that the U.S. can do no right, and are willing to look anywhere for confirmation.

After reading the two negative reviews of this work I find myself asking whether or not we've read the same book. Some passing reference is made somewhere as to "a great deal of information contradicting its (Atomic Diplomacy's) conclusions" but the unhappy reviewer manages to cite exactly none of it. He does have a colorful vocabulary though, which he puts to use in a number of ad hominem attacks, the final tool in the kit once logic fails. The book is, in no particular order, called "rarely coherent or believeable", its sources "mangled in a constant effort to make the facts conform to preordained conclusions", "long and misleading" etc. No evidence is necessary of course. It just is all those things, because it is.

A closer reading of Alperovitz' text reveals subtler conclusions. While it is true that "it's never mentioned that the Japanese government... was in fact implementing plans to repel the expected American invasion," the reason that is not mentioned is that it was irrelevant to US planners, who intended to drop the bomb on them whether they were preparing for a land invasion or eating cotton candy in a large circle. As history has borne out, the possessors of the bomb were in a better position to gauge its effectiveness than the hapless Japanese. As Alperovitz is careful to point out, Truman did not know if the bomb would end the war. Hence, Chinese minister Soong was urged to keep the Soviets on the hook, making concessions on Manchuria and Mongolia, in case they still proved useful in some capacity if the bomb failed and the war went on. But after the successful test, Truman's doubts were put to rest and fat man and little boy were dropped mere weeks later, any fears of effectiveness cowed before mushroom clouds. All this is plainly evident and documented in the book, but only if one takes the time to read it.

US scheming to negotiate a favorable postwar settlement in Europe is characterized as "attempts to prevent what would be fifty years of tyranny in Eastern Europe," surely a noble cause. But given the reviewer's earlier claim that Truman could not know the effectiveness of the atomic bomb on Japan, how could he then divine the outcome of fifty years of Soviet influence in Eastern Europe? A seeming contradiction, but it makes sense somehow to deluded ideologues.

The fact of the matter is that the Soviets naturally stood at a decided advantage in Europe in mid-1945, and had legitimate claims on security issues, reparations, and political matters, especially since Poland and Romania served as launch pads for only-recent Nazi incursions into the motherland. US planners sought to offset that natural disadvantage and tip the balance towards themselves in any manner possible. Amply demonstrated in Alperovitz' book is what that manner was: nuclear technology. It isn't attractive to look back on it, but there it is. It doesn't serve our inflated sense of collective self, but I had assumed, wrongly apparently, that that sort of childishness was of secondary concern to grown men and women seeking some semblance of the truth. A Europe reconstructed on Soviet terms would have restricted the US economy and trade, hence not an option. Russia insisted on heavy reparations from Germany and refused to allow them to reindustrialize, as a consequence destabilizing further European economy. The US won't make money that way. That's why "much of the book deals with the early postwar situation in Europe." Because the money and power was in Europe, money and power being the US' sole concern with the geopolitics of the day. Again, all of this is well-supported in the text and only a stumbling block to those with their eyes on their feet as they tread.

Two hundred thousand dead, foreign dead at that, in one fell swoop, for a permanent foothold in Europe. Better believe Washington takes that tradeoff any day. And here we are reaping the benefits years later, in comfortable chairs patting ourselves on the back for our eternal righteousness and reassuring ourselves over and over again, 'no, no, the blood be not on our hands. It was the relentless Japanese who brought it on themselves. They made us do it'. The prayers of the aggressor to his forgiving God. Pray it enough times aloud: it almost makes it real.

Received this book as a birthday gift seeing I was born on Oct. 31st, and really enjoyed it! Great table book for friends to flip through while you're in the john.

I enjoyed the book. Reading it was like watching a b-horror movie with your smart alex friend who loves to give timely sarcastic comments. It was light hearted, fun humor and the comments from the movie insiders were revealing and funny.

I totally enjoyed this book. I thought the cartoons were fun, the jokes are cute and the celebrity stories added a lot. People always pick it up off my coffee table and say how clever it is, so for that alone it was worth purchasing. Be cool buy this book!

If you are looking for a serious book to learn the craft of acting, there are plenty of those in the library.
If you are looking for the most unique look at b-movie making available as told by the people who know the most, buy this book!
It's quick, funny, and gives you an insight that you cannot find elsewhere.

To find the true measure of this tongue-in-cheek horror movie book, put it on your coffee table and use it to compare notes while watching a monster/horror flick. This thing is dead-on...and funny! The hilarious intro, written by drive-in movie expert Joe Bob Briggs, is worth the price of the book. You can easily use B-Movie Survival Guide to set up beer drinking games while yelling at the screen. (example -- drink a beer every time someone opens the cellar door.) Killer (no pun intended) illustrations, too.

"Party of One," by veteran California newspaper columnist Daniel Weintraub, details the amazing life of America's second most important chief executive, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Weintraub begins with a brief overview of Schwarzenegger's early life in a small town in Austria, as a bodybuilder who, "...left his native country as a young man to pursue his vision of the American Dream. He believed with the passion of the converted that anyone who worked hard and focused on his goals could make it in America. Not just make it - but make it big. Fame. Wealth. Adulation. A beautiful family."

The author, befitting his profession as a political journalist, quickly fast forwards to 2003, the year of California's fateful recall of Gov. Gray Davis. During that election, Schwarzenegger promised to "tear up" the state's credit cards as California groaned under a huge deficit caused by a complete lack of spending restraint coupled with the tech bubble bursting that served to end a spike in capital gains tax earnings. It was this political promise that would serve as the central criticism in Weintraub's story; the greatest failing; the biggest lost opportunity. Weintraub writes, "Schwarzenegger's failure to deal with the long-term, structural problem in the budget - the fact that spending was programmed by law to grow faster than tax revenues - allowed state spending to rise from $78 billion when he took office to $102 billion as he ran for reelection three years later, an increase of more than 30 percent... By the time he was reelected in November 2006, the state was spending more per capita and more as a percentage of the economy than it ever had before... His goal of bringing the state's books back into the black - the defining issue in his first campaign for the governor's office - would continue to depend on little more than a gamble, a hope that the economy would perform better than his own experts expected. It might have been a good formula for political success. But as fiscal policy, it would never get the job done." Schwarzenegger's fiscal failings became increasingly obvious in 2008 as California's deficit came back with a vengeance at $17 billion.

Weintraub adequately retells the phases of Schwarzenegger's public career, his first foray into politics with his after school program initiative, his initial year in office, his failed "year of reform," his retooling by coming out with a proposal to massively borrow to build infrastructure, and his push to capture the environmental issue. All of this is set into the context of examining how Schwarzenegger, while nominally a Republican, governs with no discernable set of principles - a "liberaltarian," as Brink Lindsey coined.

Weintraub wraps up by breezing through Schwarzenegger's convincing reelection in 2006 and his efforts in 2007 to increase government involvement in healthcare, reform the prison system (something I had a supporting role in), and reform the political process.

All in all, Weintraub tells the story of a remarkable man trying to govern a remarkable state, doing some things well, but failing in other, more basic tests of leadership. Weintraub leaves the impression that Schwarzenegger could have done more and could be doing more, but somehow is falling short of his initial high promise.

Reviewer: Chuck DeVore is a California State Assemblyman, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Army National Guard and the author of "China Attacks."

Schwarzenegger remains the tool of big business while pretending to be the "Peoples Governor". However, when
you ask the question: Which people? The answer is those who contribute to his campaign, aka, big business.
He has decimated benefits for workers injured in California and his staff illegally implemented the permanent
disability rating schedule, like the V.A. did with Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. However, a California Work-
ers' Compensation Judge has refused to use the schedule and filed a case reporting how the Schwarzenegger administration is cheating injured workers by lying to the legislature. Most importantly, like G.W. Bush, he refuses to correct the problem and has twice vetoed bills passed by the legislature to fix the deceit. We are awaiting a decision on the Boughner case to correct the problem. Please don't be fooled by his act that he is not a typical Republican. He is, and always will be, a big business Republican.

Considering the subject matter, Dan Weintraub was able to capture my attention long enough to get through the book. I liked Arnold more as a paid actor saving the world than a paid politician using the State of California to perfect the art of "bait and switch". Where or where are public servants who serve the public or has public servant become an oxymoron. Kudos to Weintraub for his research and coherent presentation of a plate of "green eggs and ham" dressed up as a thought out road map to move California forward.

This is a terrific book. It takes a very complicated and important subject -- how California is governed -- and explains it in a way that is clear, accurate and fun to read. The book is particularly valuable for explaining a much misunderstood and timely subject: Schwarzenegger's health care plan, which passed the Assembly but failed to get out a committee in the state Senate. Although this book is important and should show up on a few college syllabi, it doesn't feel like homework. Some of the writing is more than clear -- it's beautiful.

Recently, Daniel Weintraub argued that correctional officers should not receive raises. He also suggested that officers should make LESS, since there are so many applicants for the job. His logic is not only twisted, but also a reflection of the "scrooge mentality" afflicting many bosses.

In Weintraub's world, men and women would be paid the least amount possible, and unions would be banned. This means that the teacher's union would not be allowed to ask for better wages, and that the Hollywood writers (without their union) should be paid as little as possible. Because, after all, there are thousands waiting in the wings to be teachers and writers, which, by Weintraub's logic, means writers and teachers are paid too much! This flies in the face of the obvious: labor creates value (John Locke).

Also, in America, if a job is dangerous, requires skills, or involves education or training, we pay more for that career-- which is why NFL players, despite "only having a high school education", are paid more than Bee writers! Why don't we don't hear Weintraub and his cronies attacking the 49ers? After all, football players make way more money than correctional officers.

The fact is, officers are required to attend hundreds of hours of training (they attend an arduous academy) both on and off the job. They are educated (many have BA's and MA's) and their job is dangerous (if you don't believe this, ask the family of Manny Gonzalez, an officer recently murdered by an inmate). Officers work long hours, and yes, get paid overtime for those long hours-- would Weintraub expect them to work for free? And officers do a thankless job that neither Daniel nor his cohorts would be willing to do, for any amount of money.

As for the officers' union: membership in a union is a legal right, guaranteed by U.S. law. An officer can choose to not join the union (membership is voluntary), but he still receives union protection. Officers organized a union, because prior to the union, in 1970, a "prison guard" only earned $600/ month. At that time, guards had no training, no education, no protective equipment, no baton, and no alarm (just a whistle)-- They had just their wits to protect them. Before the union, a guard's retirement (if he lived that long) was $240/ month. So, that is where officers came from, and they don't want to go back.

Also, folks join unions for protection-- to receive decent pay and decent benefits-- which is why McClatchy and all the other newspapers destroyed the newspaper unions, over 30 years ago. Newspapers hate unions, because unions give the workers rights-- the right to speak out against abuse, the right to pick one's job assignment, the right to expose corrupt bosses, and the right to sue for better work conditions. The union, in spite of Weintraub's complaints, is less influential than the rich business lobbies, and certainly less powerful than the writer's union (assuming Daniel is a member; certainly not possible).

Contrary to Daniel Weintraub, Officer's salaries are not a major cost to the state: 41% of California's budget goes to schools and 25.3% to Health and Human Services (welfare). Corrections is only 7.3% of the budget; officers salaries actually account for less than 3% of the total state budget. With gas rising to $4/gallon, and inflation at over 5%, no pay raise means pay cut-- for a job which is dangerous, dirty and difficult.

There is a certain irony about Daniel, a wealthy man, lecturing working stiffs about making too much money. Perhaps Weintraub could take a pay cut from his cushy six-figure editorial job? Because, as Weintraub argues, a job which has more applicants than openings is paying too much. And many new journalism grads want Daniel's job! But then, ignoring or manipulating the facts is common for reporters and editorial writers at the Bee. When you have an agenda, then fair and balanced reporting goes out the window.


In ending this letter, I realize I have wasted my time: the Sacramento Bee (Daniel's boss) will never print this letter, or give equal time to dissenting viewpoints. Or, if I am "lucky", the editors will pretend to be "fair" by allowing me a hundred words or so to respond, thus crippling my comments, and making my letter impotent. After all, as all working folks know, only rich men who own newspapers have freedom of speech. The rest of us go online and read blogs.


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